Engineers will review 1,500 South Australian bridges after structural problems emerged last week.

Structural issues last week forced the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure to close a 1.6-kilometre stretch of South Road in Adelaide after the tram overpass shifted off its bearings, with the five-day closure causing massive traffic delays and losses for local businesses.

South Road reopened on Sunday after work to shore it up.

International engineering firm Aurecon has been brought in to conduct a “thorough and comprehensive external review”.

Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Stephen Mullighan said the Government would also bring in experts to review all the state’s 1,500 major bridges.

“This is an additional, extra check of all of our bridges, on top of what our regular inspection regime is, to provide both ourselves, but importantly the public, with an extra level of confidence about the condition of our bridges across the state,” he said

“The review … together with a review of other bridges, will enable the public to have full confidence in the condition [of] existing bridge structures.”

He said the Government wanted the Auricon engineers to find out “firstly what went wrong with this part of the tram overpass, but also what we can do to fix this issue and ensure that we don't have this same problem again with this piece of infrastructure”.

“We'll also be asking Aurecon to review how the Government goes about its bridge maintenance and inspection regime, to provide us with some advice and analysis, not just on how we do it, but whether it's being done according to contemporary industry standards,” Mr Mullighan said.

It is unclear how long the external review will take, or what permanent fixes will be undertaken.